In this book a philosopher who has been at the centre of contemporary debates about the nature of the mind and of its access to the world, about language and its relation to reality, and many other metaphysical and epistemological issues turns to Pragmatism - and confronts the teaching of James, Peirce, Dewey and Wittgenstein, not solely out of an interest in theoretical questions, but above all to respond to the question whether it is possible to find an alternative to corrosive moral scepticism, of the one hand, and to moral authoritarianism on the other. It also discusses th leading contemporary philosophers, including Rorty, Quine, McDowell and Goodman.